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This number rises to 760,000 people at risk of living in poverty when grown ups are also included.

June Tinsley, head of advocacy at Barnardos, accused the Government of making little progress in the way of helping children out of poverty.

“The Government made a commitment to lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020 and it is clear to see little progress has been made,” Ms Tinsley said.

“Poverty affects children in profound and long lasting ways. Poverty worsens a child’s physical health, mental health, education and causes social exclusion and isolation, and it increases the chances of a child experiencing homelessness, domestic violence and emotional abuse.

“These in turn increase a child’s chance of experiencing poverty in later life. It is a vicious cycle from which many children never escape. Yet it is not inevitable,” said Ms Tinsley.

The Children’s Rights Alliance said the Government “needs to keep their foot on the pedal”.

“If the Government is to reach its target by 2020, we need to see radical measures from all government departments,” said said Tanya Ward, Chief Executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance.

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“We’ve lived for far too long with child poverty in Ireland. The time has come to eradicate it.”

Social Justice Ireland said the CSO figures show that 109,000 people living in poverty are actually in employment.

“Despite the recent economic growth Ireland has been experiencing there has been little or no social improvement for large numbers of people,” said Dr. Seán Healy, director of the think tank. “Government policy is not working, and these figures are unacceptable”.

According to the CSO, the most common types of deprivation experienced by households were an inability to afford to replace worn out furniture (20.4%), to afford to have family or friends for a drink or a meal once a month (13.9%) and to afford a morning, afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight (13.2%).